


Whumptober 2020 14 Fire

by frankie_mcstein



Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Fluffy Ending, Gen, Higgins in shock, Minor Injuries, Molotov Cocktails, Oxygen Deprivation, Whumptober 2020, house fire, hurt magnum, protective Magnum, short hospital stay, smoke inhalation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_mcstein/pseuds/frankie_mcstein
Summary: Whumptober 2020 prompt 14- FireThe fire alarm woke him from the odd dream and he was off the couch in a heartbeat. He couldn't smell smoke, so the fire must be in the main building. Where Higgins was.
Relationships: Juliet Higgins & Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Series: Whumptober 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947172
Comments: 17
Kudos: 50





	Whumptober 2020 14 Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Tommy. He just wants to be the big dumb hero.

He'd only meant to have a brief nap, something to help shift the gritty feeling in his eyes. But then he'd started dreaming about a waterfall, lush green trees swaying in the gentle breeze, the heat of the sun making everything shimmer. There was someone else there with him, a woman. But he couldn't see her face. 

In his dream, he tipped his head to the side as he watched the hazy figure turn to the picnic basket and pick something from its depths. He narrowed his eyes a little, trying desperately to see her face, and missed the grapes she was holding out to him.

He knew she had said something, an impression of a light sound resting gently on his ears, but he hadn't heard the words. He tried to replay them, wondering whether he knew her voice, but he couldn't. 

In his dream, Magnum reached out slowly and took a grape, knowing without seeing it that the blurry woman was smiling at him. But his mind was still puzzling over the identity of the woman, making the dream of the grape taste oddly sour in his mind.

The vague figure turned away from him and, even in his dream, he felt a pang of disappointment. 

"Please look at me." He was trying to beg, but his voice sounded odd. Even for a dream, it was strange, a series of beeps rather than his voice. He tried reaching out to her, but his hand moving spawned more of the beeping noise.

His mind was starting to wake itself up, confused by the noise. He tried to force the shape of the woman to pull itself into a definite form. He didn't even care who it was anymore; he just needed to see her face. But his eyes were staring at the window of his living room rather than a woman's face.

He had a moment, less than a second, of nearly overwhelming disappointment before realizing the beeping noise was real. Loud and strident and accompanied by a small red light in the corner of the room.

Fire alarm!

He was off the couch and heading for the door in a heartbeat, slowing just long enough to seize his cell from the coffee table before sprinting to the door.

_ 'No smell of smoke,'  _ his mind said quickly.  _ 'And no suppression system alert.' _

Despite the arctic chill that had accompanied their first meeting, Higgins had been nothing if not dutiful and had talked him through the safety and security measures across the estate, including the three different fire suppression systems depending on the contents of the rooms.

The fire must be in the main building somewhere. He knew the activation of the fire alarm would have automatically alerted the fire department, and he knew Kumu was out for the day with a delegation at the cultural center. But he also knew the response time of emergency services would depend on the traffic and that Higgins had intended on spending the majority of the day in her bathtub with the air jets turned on.

He was pretty sure she'd been exaggerating the time frame, but a quick glance at his watch told him she'd only said it an hour ago. He was also sure that, with the bruises he had seen on her that morning and the pulled muscles she had been forced to take painkillers for, she wouldn't find it easy to climb out of the tub, even with a fire alarm blaring.

At the back of his mind was also the thought that she would hate for a group of strange men to go bursting into her bedroom under any circumstances. The idea of a group of strange men seeing her with little to no clothing would be abhorrent to her, even if they were to save her life. Not that him seeing her in such a state would be much better, but at least he would have the opportunity to insist that he had kept his eyes closed.

_ 'You're rambling,' _ he snapped at himself, though not really annoyed. He knew his mind was working, years of training running smoothly in the background while the foreground thoughts were nonsense. It was just how his brain handled stressful situations. 

Sure enough, as he was pondering Higgins' reaction to her bedroom being invaded and wondering if she would rather throw herself out of the bathroom window than allow it, his feet were carrying him rapidly to the side of the house. He saw the smoke billowing out of two or three windows and the shattered glass on the second floor. He quickly put two and two together and guessed the fire had been started deliberately, a Molotov cocktail hurled through the broken window maybe. 

Then he realized the broken window was in the small office next to Higgins' bedroom. He heard the computerized countdown telling him people needed to evacuate before the suppression system kicked in. And he remembered that, in Higgins' bedroom, that meant the air would be pumped out to prevent the flames spreading. If she couldn't move fast enough to get out…

His mind shuddered away from the idea. He'd protested to Robin, telling him it was too dangerous, but Robin had responded by having someone from the insurance company call him. Magnum had been told that the system was the only one suitable to protect the irreplaceable cultural items in the surrounding rooms.

And now, Higgins was going to suffocate, possibly while in the bath. 

Unless he could get to her first. Through the study, along the hallway, up the stairs. He was hardly even thinking of anything, just moving as quickly as he could and letting his brain handle everything without letting things like conscious thought get in the way. He was halfway up the stairs when he first felt his chest tighten and coughed hard. The second floor hallway was full of smoke, and he realized his eyes were watering.

It didn't matter. He knew the layout of the house, could make his way around in the dark if he needed to. The door to Higgins' bedroom was closed, and he shoved it open with such force that it nearly bounced back off the wall. Thankfully, the room was reasonably clear of smoke because his chest was still protesting. 

He tried to call to Higgins but coughed again as he breathed in, the smoke from the hall following him into her room. He staggered a little as he crossed to the door of the ensuite, the coughing throwing him off balance. Then a sound of shattering glass echoed around him, and the smoke seemed to get thicker. 

Had a window blown out? Or had another fire bomb been thrown in? Damnit, he hadn't thought to check whoever had started the fire had gone, his concern over Higgins overruling his common sense. 

_ 'Just get to the bathroom,' _ he tried to tell himself, but he was coughing again and felt his knees bending a little too much to be able to hold his weight. His hand landed on the door, his eyes now stinging too much from the darkening smoke to be of any use to him. He fumbled for the door knob, his chest burning as he struggled to fight off the dizziness that was encroaching on him. Too much smoke, too little air, but he hadn't heard Higgins call out even once, and he couldn't leave her.

The handle twisted, the door opened, and he fell through it, gasping and choking. 

"Ju… Juli… et… " But he just didn't have the air in his lungs. His vision was swimming, his heart racing, and he didn't even realize the automated countdown had reached single figures. His hands were reaching out for the bathtub, still desperately trying to find Higgins, even as his awareness was spiraling down.

_ 'You've done it this time,'  _ his old sergeant snapped at him in the darkness of his mind.  _ 'Really screwed the pooch.' _

Magnum couldn't even figure out how to argue. As the calm computer lady informed him that the suppression system was engaging and his sergeant called him a washout just waiting to happen, Magnum's consciousness fled, leaving his body in a crumpled heap on the floor.

…

Higgins watched in horror as the flames licked at the roof. She'd been forced to go to the pharmacy and fill her prescription, the off-the-shelf painkillers proving woefully inadequate, and her phone had alerted her to the fire alarm. Even though she had driven like Magnum to get back, the firefighters had beaten her to the estate, hoses already playing over the flames as she'd pulled up. Someone had tried to stop her going through the gates, but she had shouted about the suppression systems and possible victims and been allowed to speak to the man in charge.

She'd quickly explained about the vacuum system on the top floor of the house and the CO2 system on the first floor, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the confusion that met her when she accidently used the British ground and first floor instead. Then she'd explained that her security consultant should have been in the guest house but might well have been lurking around the main house instead.

She felt some small, panicked part of her brain trying to make a joke about the possibility of Magnum being found in the wine cellar, but the vast majority of her mind was focused on giving the firefighters as much information as she possibly could. She had been thanked, calls about a possible recuse had traveled through the assembled firemen, and she had been relegated to the background.

The longer she went without seeing Magnum strolling towards her, the worse she felt, and her hand crept over her mouth. She pressed hard against her lips, pushing down the fear that was clawing at her. She told herself he'd had no reason to go into the house, that he'd probably gone down to the beach after she'd announced her intention to soak away the aches and pains the previous day's fight had left her with.

_ 'He's probably out on the surfski,'  _ she assured herself.  _ 'Or showing off on his paddle board.' _ But she didn't feel better. She'd noticed the yawns he had tried to hide and had expected him to take a nap after they'd spoken. The guest house had been checked and was empty, he obviously wasn't on the grounds because the noise of the sirens would have brought him running, and she didn't for a moment believe he had gone out anywhere. The main house, with the smoke and flames, was the only place he could be.

And, if he had gone into the house, it was almost certain that he would be on the second floor. Because where else would Thomas Magnum, trouble magnet extraordinaire, go when a place was literally burning down if not right to the flames like the most suicidal of moths?

She was shocked at herself for thinking that. Just thinking the word felt like she was somehow jinxing him, threatening his chances. And, with the worst possible timing, a shout went up and a man came running out of the door with a terribly still figure draped over his shoulder. A figure she recognised immediately.

She stared at the fuss that erupted around Magnum's sickeningly unresponsive form. She watched as two EMTs did various clever-looking things, checked baffling-looking pieces of equipment, called things to each that might as well as have been in a foreign language for all the sense they made to her. 

What was 'no breath sounds' meant to mean? Magnum wasn't breathing? People who aren't breathing are dead; she was familiar with the situation. And that was just not right. Magnum wasn't dead. There was just no way. So, when it's an EMT saying it, it must mean something totally different. It had to. He couldn't be dead! She couldn't have lost him!

She didn't even feel the tears that were building in her eyes. She was too focused on the way Magnum wasn't trying to flirt with the pretty EMT. He wasn't trying to insist he didn't need a hospital. He wasn't trying to sit up and swing his legs off the stretcher.

He wasn't breathing.

…

T.C. didn't run into the waiting room but only because he was trying to give Rick time to catch up with him. When his cell had rung and he'd seen Higgins' name on the screen, he'd thought she was calling to ask for help, maybe for him to grab her prescription for her. So he'd answered with a smile on his face, already knowing he would say yes to whatever favor she asked.

_ "I think he's dead," _ had come over the line, her voice shaking but dull. " _ They said he wasn't breathing." _ And T.C. had felt his own breathing stop.

There was only one person Higgins could have been talking about, and T.C. had stood so quickly his chair had gone flying. It had grabbed Rick's attention, and T.C. had seen his friend looking at him with fear in his eyes.

"Higgy?" It had been so hard to keep his voice level, but it had been painfully obvious Higgins was in no fit state to handle anyone else's emotions. "Where is he?"

_ "It can't be right. It must mean something else." _

"Higgy Baby, calm down." It was grotesque, he'd thought, telling her to calm down when his own body had been practically vibrating with adrenaline. "Where is he?"

_ "They drove away. Why would they drive away if he wasn't breathing? It makes no sense." _

T.C. had given Rick a grave look and watched in relief as Rick pulled his cell out. T.C. had kept trying to talk to Higgins while Rick pled with Katsumoto to tell him what the hell was going on. And, finally, he'd heard Higgins give a sudden gasp.

_ "St. Katherine's is closest. They must have gone there." _

Rick had started waving at him, mouthing something, and T.C. had heard someone else talking to Higgins. It had sounded like she was being offered a ride. He'd hoped it was to the hospital and not just so they would all be together while they waited for news on Thomas; it sounded like she needed someone to check her over too.

He'd called down the phone that he would see her soon, but she'd given no indication she'd heard him. It had sounded like she was holding her phone down by her side, and he had ended the call with a slight pang of guilt. If she didn't show up at the hospital, they'd have to send someone to look for her. But, for the moment, he'd assumed she was on her way there too and run to climb into the passenger seat of the Porsche.

And now he was hurrying in through the sliding doors, looking all around for any familiar face. Rick caught up with him and scanned the waiting room too, and they both spotted Higgins at the same time. She looked pale but alert and looked up as they approached.

"T.C., I'm so sorry," she said as soon as they were close enough to hear her. "I couldn't seem to think straight."

"It's okay, Higgy Baby," he said as he took the chair besides her. "What happened?"

Rick sat in the chair opposite her, and they both listened in silence as she explained about the fire. Both men tensed up as she told them about Magnum and the EMTs, and she hurried on.

"They got him breathing again before they put him in the ambulance. One of the firemen called and found out for me. I think he was worried I was going into shock." She didn't even bother trying to make it sound like a joke, and T.C. put his arm around her shoulders as she spoke.

She gave him a smile, small but genuine. "I'm okay now. It just threw me a little." But she swallowed hard after she spoke and he left his arm where it was.

"Have they said anything since you got here?" Rick asked, leaning forward a little. He wasn't surprised when she shook her head. Settling back in the chair he gave a sigh before stretching his legs out, practically kicking T.C. as he did.

"Guess we're waiting then."

And the three of them settled down to wait for news.

…

"Where are we?" Magnum's voice was still a little hoarse, and he still winced a little as he spoke. But his doctor had assured them all that there was no lasting damage from the smoke inhalation or the oxygen deprivation, that he just needed time and rest.

Beside him, in the Rover's driver's seat, Higgins smiled. "The estate is in a mess," she said, not answering his question. "Builders everywhere."

"Okay." Then, when it became apparent she wasn't planning on saying anything else, he reached out and tapped her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow as she quickly turned away from the road to look at him, and she grinned.

"I booked us into a hotel," she explained. "Your doctor said you need rest." She obviously caught the slightly worried look on his face. "Don't worry, the building insurance is covering part of the cost and I'm paying the rest."

He didn't mean to cough at that; it really was just bad timing. But the look on her face, half-amused and half-offended, was a picture, and he nearly considered it worth the pain that was burning in his chest and throat. He offered a sheepish grin by way of an apology, glad when she gave a small laugh.

"You were only hurt because you wanted to make sure I was okay. Just think of this as me returning the favor."

It hadn't really been as simple as that, and Magnum felt like he should try to explain. He didn't want her throwing away money on a room for him when the guest house was undamaged. But then he caught her looking at him out the corner of her eye, saw the concern there, and remembered T.C. saying he'd been almost as worried about Higgins as he'd been about Magnum.

Magnum wasn't meant to have heard that, he was meant to have been asleep while T.C. was talking, so he hadn't had the chance to ask why. Now, as he saw her gnaw lightly on her lower lip, he wondered if it was her worry for him that had made his brothers so worried about her. That maybe whisking him away to a hotel instead of letting him go home while she couldn't stay there was her way of keeping him close, making sure he really was okay.

By the time he had decided he quite liked the idea of her being scared for him, they had reached the front door of the hotel and there wasn't really any point in his trying to argue about staying there. Besides, he was only human, and he quite liked the idea of being pampered for a little.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so mean. Even when he's perfectly placed to save the day, I whump the poor man instead.


End file.
